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Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs One Identity Safeguard comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Identity Services Eng...
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
141
Ranking in other categories
Network Access Control (NAC) (1st), Cisco Security Portfolio (1st)
One Identity Safeguard
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (6th), Privileged Access Management (PAM) (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) and One Identity Safeguard aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is designed for Network Access Control (NAC) and holds a mindshare of 28.8%, down 31.6% compared to last year.
One Identity Safeguard, on the other hand, focuses on Privileged Access Management (PAM), holds 4.5% mindshare, down 5.6% since last year.
Network Access Control (NAC)
Privileged Access Management (PAM)
 

Featured Reviews

Bill Masci - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps across a distributed network, giving you a central way of authenticating everybody
A lot of people tell you the hardware requirements for ISE are pretty substantial. If you're running a virtual environment, you're going to be dedicating quite a bit of resources to an ISE VM. That is something that could be worked on. The upgrade process is not very simple. It's pretty time-consuming. If you follow it step by step you're probably going to have a good time, but there are still a lot of things that could be a lot more user-friendly from an administrator's perspective. [They could be] easing a lot of the issues that people have. Instead of just saying the best practice is to migrate to new nodes [what would be helpful] would be to make that upgrade process easier. The UI is a lot nicer in 3.0. It's pretty slow, but for the most part, it's easy to find what you're looking for, especially things like RADIUS live logs, TACACS live logs. From a troubleshooting perspective, it's really nice finding stuff. For setting up policies, from that perspective, it could be a little bit better looking.
Tor Nordhagen - PeerSpot reviewer
Transparent mode for privileged sessions will greatly simplify our client's administrative situation
We're introducing the solution's transparent mode for privileged sessions. This is part of what the client hasn't used before. It will simplify their administrative situation greatly. So far, the rollout of this feature has been a seamless process, but we're still in the midst of rolling it out. The benefits will be on the risk side. Right now, the way accounts are managed, you don't necessarily know who is using an account. There's a shared admin account, and that's not a good thing. And those accounts are shared in wallets by several people. One of the real benefits of safeguarding here is that the client will have an absolute audit of who is using an administrative interface, whether it's server or network.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Member Access Control and the ability to integrate all Cisco wireless, Cisco networking, switches, routers, and firewalls."
"The integration with Active Directory is the most valuable feature for us."
"When you push out the policy, it is able to populate the entire network at one time."
"The most valuable feature is 801.1x and another very good feature is the TACACS."
"Cisco ISE scales exceptionally well."
"The most valuable feature is AnyConnect Posture because it scans all the programs on the workstation and checks if the antivirus is up to date, as well as the cryptographic keys on our SSD."
"The most valuable features are the NAC and the bundles that are available with Cisco ISE, such as Cisco ACS being integrated."
"For us and our clients, the most valuable features of Identity Services Engine are really around the rich contact sharing that ISE gives you."
"The most unique and valuable features are the upstream and downstream throughput capacities; the Safeguard platform provides agile integration. In actuality, all the features are valuable. They're good, user-friendly."
"One Identity Safeguard is stable and provides great performance."
"Being able to use a proxy server is an advantage."
"The technical support is tremendous."
"Safeguard can define and update processes and procedures into the security framework of a company, including mobile. It allows us to change the policies and configurations on a mass scale in regards to security."
"The Transparent Mode is the number one advantage of the product."
"It has greatly helped improve our security posture. Safeguard has an option where it will reset passwords on service accounts, then go out to those servers where that service account is running as a service and update the password on it. That makes password changes very easy. We can regularly change passwords now and are planning on making it an annual activity, where all the people who own service accounts will go in and make sure all their passwords get changed, updated, and reset."
"The system is easy to manage, as it is not a system that you will change everything all of a sudden. It evolves most of the time with customer requests."
 

Cons

"Cisco could improve the GUIs on their hardware."
"It could be more intuitive in terms of how to configure the policies."
"In order to make it a ten, it should be more user-friendly. You need somebody who is knowledgeable about it to use it. It's not easy to use. We have to rely heavily on technical support."
"I think some areas where ISE could be better are perhaps in the number of integrations that they offer from a virtual standpoint, as well as having a better and more comprehensive pathway for the customer to go from a physical environment to a virtual one."
"The solution is not so user-friendly."
"In an upcoming release, it would be nice to have NAC already standard in the solution."
"The opinion of my coworkers, and it's mine as well, is that the user interface could use some tender loving care. It seems counterintuitive sometimes. If you go to the logs, it's hard to figure out which one you need to look at."
"In a future release, I would like to see network access control. That is something that customers seem to be looking for."
"One Identity's support is not appropriately structured, and it has a lot of room to improve."
"The multilanguage functionality does not support the Arabic language, even though this solution is deployed in an Arabic region."
"The interface is better now, but it still could be improved a lot. It needs more organization, menus, automatic refresh of information, and Web 2.0."
"We have feature requests and would like to see the turnaround times on those features to be faster."
"Monitoring of the platform should be easier and more functional so that you can have a clear picture of the running service."
"Some of our users find the functionality a bit complex, and it could be made more user-friendly."
"The product uses a lot of resources in current sessions."
"There is a lack of documentation and many problems with the plugins."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The technology is good, but to use some of the other features, and capabilities, they request that we purchase the Cisco DNA Center. As a result, the bundled price is a little high."
"Pricing and licensing are not my expertise. As far as budgeting is concerned, we run an ELA with Cisco. It's a part of our ELA."
"It's damn expensive and the licensing is terrible... If you have perpetual licenses on 2.7 and you upgrade to 3, you are forced to go with Essentials. That is one of the issues that I'm seeing with my clients now."
"There are other cheaper options available."
"The pricing is complicated."
"There are three levels of pricing: basic, plus, and apex. Basic satisfied our needs."
"There is a license to use this solution and the price is reasonable."
"The price of Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine) is expensive and we are thinking about changing to FortiGate."
"It is a bit on the pricey side, but you get what you pay for. You don't want to get anything too cheap because then you get cheap stuff and cheap support. That really never helps anybody."
"The pricing depends on our perspective, our budget, and, of course, the competitors we are taking into account."
"They have comparable pricing. All identity products are essentially priced in a similar way. It's a per-user base."
"The full license is expensive but if you plan to use it in a big organization then it is the best option because it is more flexible."
"Its subscription cost is too much, and sometimes, it is very difficult to pitch the solution to the management for cost approval. If the cost is reduced a little bit, it would be easier. If its cost was less, many other organizations that currently cannot afford it would be able to use this technology. I'm sure many organizations around the globe are having issues with identity management, and it is a very difficult task for IT to manage privileged accounts."
"Safeguard is cheaper than CyberArk."
"The pricing is about $80,000 per 100 servers. There are few elective costs."
"Our licensing costs are on a yearly basis."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
27%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
23%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which is better - Aruba Clearpass or Cisco ISE?
Aruba ClearPass is a Network Access Control tool that gives secure network access to multiple device types. You can adapt the policies to VPN access, wired, or wireless access. You can securely ...
What are the main differences between Cisco ISE and Forescout Platform?
OK, so Cisco ISE uses 802.1X to secure switchports against unauthorized access. The drawback of this is that ISE cannot secure the port if a device does not support 802.1x. Cameras, badge readers, ...
How does Cisco ISE compare with Fortinet FortiNAC?
Cisco ISE uses AI endpoint analytics to identify new devices based on their behavior. It will also notify you if someone plugs in with a device that is not allowed and will block it. The user exper...
What do you like most about One Identity Safeguard?
The identity discovery is good, and the performance is pretty good value.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for One Identity Safeguard?
One Identity Safeguard is expensive. The license is around $3,000 per month.
What needs improvement with One Identity Safeguard?
One Identity's support is not appropriately structured, and it has a lot of room to improve.
 

Also Known As

Cisco ISE
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Aegean Motorway, BC Hydro, Beachbody, Bucks County Intermediate Unit , Cisco IT, Derby City Council, Global Banking Customer, Gobierno de Castilla-La Mancha, Houston Methodist, Linz AG, London Hydro, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Molina Healthcare, MST Systems, New South Wales Rural Fire Service, Reykjavik University, Wildau University
Cavium
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, HPE Aruba Networking, Fortinet and others in Network Access Control (NAC). Updated: November 2024.
824,067 professionals have used our research since 2012.